Windows 8 for Gaming

Description

In Windows 8, we wanted to deliver the best possible experience for gamers as well as the best platform for game developers. We made improvements for game developers to ensure they have the right APIs to get what they need to build incredible game experiences. In Windows 8 your games will perform better than ever!

We think gamers are going to love the new features of Windows 8.

For additional information on developing games, please see the following links:

The Discussion

Ben P

Is this some sort of joke? As an indie developer, I was livid when Microsoft's decision to not make all the APIs being trumpetted about here available via XNA - after being kept in the dark for so many months with the "will they/won't they support it" debate and no hard facts. And I know I'm not the only one.

Moreover, my returns from advertising have been absolutely pathetic - after the first month of advertising on my Windows Phone games, my eCPM fell to an average of around £0.08.

Indie developers - the life blood of the app store don't want to have to spend months recoding their libraries and games from scratch - they want XNA. Don't believe me? Look around at the rapid rise to Monogame to prominence. Thing is though, Monogame also allows XNA-style code to deploy to Android and iOS - and if these prove to have better returns than Microsoft, well... I'm afraid you can kiss a large number of those developers goodbye. Meaning that the number of apps will stay low, prompting customers and bigger studios to stay away.

Microsoft, it may be too late now to reinstate XNA support. However, unless you take action to improve Windows 8/Windows Phone 8 return rates, I'm afraid it may be too little, too late.

I agreed with Ben P.XNA have a large community wating to develop.Also, a lot of funny games are in XNA 3.5 and 4.0, imagine a gamer who buy Windows 8 and want play these games... It's sad...Please, launch a update with full suport to XNA...We need it...